Wednesday, July 14, 2021

Overwhelmed

 

Wednesday, July 14, 2021

I cry out to the Lord; I plead for the Lord’s mercy.  I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles.  When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn.  Wherever I go, my enemies have set traps for me.  I look for someone to come and help me, but no one gives me a passing thought!  No one will help me; no one cares a bit what happens to me.  Then I pray to you, O Lord.  I say, “You are my place of refuge.  You are all I really want in life.  Psalm 142:1-5

In preparing for celebrating the Lord’s Supper with a group of other preachers I realized I was a bit consumed by commitments.  My schedule looks like a crazed chicken with print cartridges for feet had been turned loose to run all over my calendar!  Here I was, contemplating what it would take to be a non-anxious presence as the celebrant, realizing (in that honest look-in-the-mirror moment), that I was probably the most-anxious guy who would sit at that table.   

It’s a common state of affairs these days; there’s just not enough time for everything you planned, much less what everybody else in your world wants.  As the Psalmist, it’s no trouble at all to make the leap from well, I’m a little busier than I’d like to be…all the way to stop this crazy merry-go-round, I need to get off before I explode!

The key word in that compound thought is OVERWHELMED

If you can honestly say you’ve never felt overwhelmed, you’re either quite disconnected from everyone and everything, and might consider checking with a psychotherapist for some new meds…or you’re not really being honest.  Anxiety, fear, concern, frazzled…there are so many ways to describe that sense in the pit of your stomach that alerts you to the fact that you can’t possibly complete all that life has dumped on your plate!

Then I read today’s Psalm again.  A Psalm generally appears 3 times each week in the Lectionary Readings, and I’m certain the Lord (knowing how dense I can be) ordained it that way.  Sometimes it takes much rain to soak a dry mind!  It finally sunk-in; the Psalmist knew how to sing woe, despair, and agony on me as well as anyone; in short – he is me!

And look what I discovered – the Psalmist opens up that part of my innermost being and lays it out for the sun to get at it – to chase the darkness and fear, to cull the briars from where I’m walking barefoot.  He opens the prayer book of my heart and the notes resonate deep-within how God, as my refuge from all the tormenting angst of the day’s demands, is all my heart really wanted anyway. 

And there is a reason for that.  Created in the image of God, even a sin-stained life can recognize the light that still lingers there, waiting to be set on the hills of our heart and soul.  It illuminates all the goodness of the hand of God from which we’ve sprung.  And it draws us to Him.  And that is enough to turn the anxiety of all the shortcomings I feel into nothing but gratitude for God’s grace.  If there is any place in this universe where Russell doesn’t come up short, it’s when he is bathed in the forgiveness of God’s loving embrace.

That’s a different kind of being overwhelmed; beloved, I’ll take that over what the world wants to give me…any day!

For You Today

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the workload, crises, world news, or what to do about your child’s failing grades in school….or maybe just the whole lot of what you’ve been dealing-with…take an extra moment with Psalm 142 today.  Nothing that’s been chasing you will stand a chance at robbing the peace you’ll find there.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©    

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